On 5/4/06 at 5:20 AM, julian.aguirre at ehu.es (Julian Aguirre) wrote:
>2) Let MyList be a large list of integers (somewhere between 20.000
>and 50.000 elements) and MyTest a function on the integers returning
>True or False (for instance, test2 above). What is an efficient way
>of deciding if there is an element in MyList for which MyTest is
>True? Right now I use
>Select[MyList, MyTest, 1] != {}
There are a variety of alternatives particularly if your function isn't simply restricted to returning True or False.
For example consider trying to determine if a given value occurs in a list of random integers.
In[53]:=
data = Table[Random[Integer, {1, 10^6}], {10^5}];
then any of the following could be used
In[59]:=
Timing[Count[data, 100]]
Out[59]=
{0.053191 Second,0}
In[55]:=
Timing[Select[data,100==#&]]
Out[55]=
{0.27063 Second,{}}
In[56]:=
Timing[Cases[data,100]]
Out[56]=
{0.053879 Second,{}}
In[57]:=
Timing[Pick[data,#==100&/@data]]
Out[57]=
{0.348369 Second,{}}
The fastest method I know for this specific problem is:
In[58]:=
Timing[SparseArray[1 - Abs[Sign[data - 100]]] /.
SparseArray[_, _, _, a_] :> Last[a]]
Out[58]=
{0.014741 Second, {}}
Note, the fastest method will likely change with details of the function used as the test function.
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